Behind the Benghazi select committee

Last Wednesday, Speaker John Boehner left the Capitol to see a doctor because of back pain that hobbled him after a weeklong trip to the Middle East.

A day later, he was limping around the House floor, dropping hints that he would create a special committee to investigate the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, which left a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans dead.

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Boehner: Benghazi committee won't 'be a circus'

He ultimately announced the panel on Friday, escalating a standoff between Congress and the White House. The decision highlights Boehner’s evolution as speaker. After spending his first few years in power focused on negotiating a budget-balancing fiscal deal with President Barack Obama, the GOP majority is now overwhelmingly focused on oversight.

Some conservatives had publicly pressed GOP leadership for a select committee, but Boehner — ever the institutionalist — was reluctant to go that far. His natural tendency is to let the committees do their own work.

But Boehner was especially engaged on the issue — sharing the GOP’s contention that the White House isn’t fully cooperating with Congress. He’s also aware that politically he had few other options.

The final straw came last week when Judicial Watch, a government watchdog group, released a cache of emails obtained under the Freedom of Information Act that House panels had been unable to receive even after issuing a subpoena.

In Boehner’s mind, one of two things was happening: The Obama administration was giving House Republicans short shrift, or House committees were unable to get the full documents. Either explanation was unacceptable.

“I think the select committee — there is a sadness to it in a way,” said Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), the party’s chief deputy whip. “By that I mean, the speaker was reluctant to do this, it’s not something he was celebrating or anxious to do, even with earlier calls for it. But when the White House is releasing information in discovery in lawsuits that they are not releasing to Congress, that is a very serious breakdown that has to be dealt with. The speaker had a choice.”

The House will vote on a resolution to create the committee on Thursday.

But he has been laying the groundwork for some time. As he moved around the House floor last week, Boehner checked in with key figures involved in the Benghazi probes — including Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.), who penned his own bill to create a special Benghazi panel.

Boehner then told his senior staff he was leaning toward moving forward with the creation of the select committee, and would ask Rep. Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina conservative, to serve as its chairman.

Some of Boehner’s senior staff then retreated to The Homestead, a posh hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia, for the annual GOP chiefs of staff retreat. Mike Sommers, Boehner’s chief of staff, spoke with Steve Stombres, Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s (R-Va.) chief of staff, and informed him of the speaker’s decision. Senior GOP leadership staffers spoke to each other — and on cellphones to their bosses — outside a conference room where the American Enterprise Institute’s Arthur Brooks was giving a talk.